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Eating Seafood in Tianjin

Last year I had the opportunity to go to Tianjin for the first time. I have to admit that previously I had not had a great desire to go to Tianjin. I always imagined it as a big, dirty, industrial city. But I guess things have changed over the years. I had a couple days in Beijing where I met some friends so we decided to take the new bullet train out to Tianjin. It only took 28 minutes.

I had a former graduate student who was from Tianjin. Her parents were kind enough to pick us up at the train station, show us around the city, and feed us well. For lunch they took us to a fabulous seafood restaurant called 鹏天阁酒楼 péngtiāngé jiǔlóu. It was a large, well decorated restaurant. On the ground floor were dozen of large fish tanks full of turtles, lobster, shrimp, all kinds of fish, and so on. There was also many varieties of fish and other seafood on ice. There were also refrigerated cases full of side dishes. The way these kinds of restaurants work is you walk around, followed by a hostess, and you tell her what you want. You even select the specific fish you would like to eat. They write everything down, and in some cases, net the seafood right there on the spot for you.

Tanks full of live seafood

Netting our selected fish

Selecting other dishes

After we selected our dishes we were ushered upstairs to a private dinning room. At most nicer restaurants it is common for larger private parties to have your own private dinning room. You will usually have a waitress assigned specifically to your room.

A typical private dinning room

The Chinese are gracious hosts. I had worked with this graduate student for several years, had hired her, wrote letters of recommendation for her, and so on. Her parents were probably feeling somewhat indebted to me, so this their way of saying ‘thank you.’ As is usual in this kind of situation, they ordered way more food than we could eat. This is also the Chinese way of showing respect for a guest. In total they ordered 11 dishes. Some of those dishes are below. Chinese restaurant food have notoriously creative names and they are difficult to translate. I have provided more literal translations to these dishes and sometimes have avoided the more difficult to translate phrases.

清炒四角豆 qīngchǎo sìjiǎodòu (fresh stir-fried four-sided beans)

世纪深井烤鹅 shìjì shēnjǐng kǎo é (Century deep well roasted goose)

胞椒茴香卷 bāojiāo huíxiāng juǎn (Fennel rolls)

白灼甚围虾 báizhuó shénwěi xià (Boiled shrimp)

清蒸海蟹 qīngzhēng hǎixiè(Fresh steamed ocean crab)

清蒸桂鱼 qīngzhēng guìyǔ(Fresh steamed Mandarin fish)

鲜椒美容蹄 xiān jiāo měiróng tí (Pig trotters with fresh pepper)

It was a really memorable meal. Chinese dining is a group experience with all dishes placed in the center of the table on a lazy Susan. Everyone then serves themselves from these dishes. Everything is communal. It is great to eat wonderful food with good company.

I am very shocked about the bullet train. I looked up how long it would take by car…1hr and 28 min. That is true innovation. In addition, I love how the Chinese eat: family style. I think it is so much fun and important that way. Eating family style you are able to try more dishes than you could ever on your own.